This is my (somewhat)
new playlist as of
March 21, 2008.
Anyone worth knowing. My thought is that, even if you remove the rude, stupid and generally boring 95 % of the world's population, there should still be roughly 332722531.2 people left worth talking to. If you are one of them, alright.
I would also like to know someone who has never heard of Myspace or a television or any of this other flickering illuminated nonsense that we've all grown so fond of.
So... Aboriginal and indigenous peoples, feel free to message me on your laptops!!!
"Your life has lost its dignity, its beauty and its passion. You're an accident waiting to happen." -Billy Bragg
On "Love Travels At Illegal Speeds" Graham Coxon continues to create memorable, guitar fueled music that has diverged in many ways from his years as one the of driving forces of British band Blur.
He has stripped down many of the "bells and whistles" from his late band through the course of his solo work, and the music is clean and straightforward by result.
The Good, The Bad And The Queen is a beautifully produced (by Danger Mouse) collaboration between ex-Clash bassist Paul Simonon, Verve guitarist Simon Tong, Damon Albarn and Africa 70 drummer Tony Allen. It is a surprisingly strange and moving album.
Architecture In Helsinki's album "Fingers Crossed" came out in 2004, but I only really gave it a listen just recently.
Very cool stuff. I especially like the song "The Owl's Go."
"El Laberinto Del Fauno" or "Pan's Labyrinth" is an amazingly beautiful and sad, yet ultimately hopeful film by Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro. The works speaks volumes about the power of myth, humanity and the incorruptibility of innocence.
Donnie Darko is one of the strangest and most engaging films that I have seen in the last few years.
It's got Maggie Gyllenhaal, the end of the world and a man in the most frightenening bunny suit that I have ever seen. What more could I possibly want in a movie...
and "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"
"I Heart Huckabees" is a funny and poignant film that dares to ask the question "You can't deal with my infinite nature, can you?"
"A Scanner Darkly" is director Richard Linklater's animated film version of the Philip K. Dick novel.
As I mention elsewhere on this page, I'm not quite sure what I think about this film, yet. Hmmmmm.
"The Medium Is The Massage" is Marshall McLuhan, Quentin Fiore & Jerome Agel's classic examination of how media, visual perception and language interplay with culture and individual perception. The book was conceptually prophetic when it was written and is as relevant (or more so) now as it was in 1967.
Though somewhat overwritten in the minds of most critics and overlooked critically in the midst of Hermann Hesse's other master works, "Narcissus and Goldmund" has always been one of my favorite of his novels.
Using the dichotomy of choice, moralism and worldliness versus hermeticism and life in a priory, Hesse tells the story of two friends of such differing tempermants that their worlds rarely overlap.
This work seems more romanticism than twentieth century, begging comparisons to Goethe's "The Sufferings of Young Werther." The last few lines of "Narcissus and Goldmund" are also of my favorites.
"This time, he is willing to accept death. It is too sad to watch as Goldmund tells Narcissus, 'But how will you die when your time comes, Narcissus, since you have no mother? Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.'"
"A Confederacy of Dunces" returns to my top book list that no one reads after several months removed.
I guess I just put this one up whenever I reread my favorite passages from this novel because I really need a good laugh. This is undoubtedly one of the funniest works that I have ever read.
Unfortunately, it is also one of the saddest. And not without reason. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide before this work was ever known by the world. The story of its publication is also somewhat amazing. It is good his mother loved him.
Kurt Vonnegut - Author, painter, social satirist and critic, Vonnegut's novels are among my favorite. He has brought much laughter into my life through his words. Sadly, he died this year, but he leaves very much in his wake.